From Suffering Servant To "Yes Your Majesty"

After several minutes of "you will do this and you will do that" our young mans platoon marches off in double time. They enter a building where they are ordered to stand heel to toe in a straight line. As the line moves forward and each man reaches its front he must sit in the barbers chair for the quickest haircut of his life. Now that he is bald he is ordered to strip down to his skivvies and walk through a line where he is vaccinated against every disease he may encounter as a Marine. Now is the time to get his uniform. It isn’t the attractive blue dress uniforms he saw back at the station or that he saw his recruiter wearing but heavy, green woodland camouflage fatigues.

Everybody looks the same now with bald heads, black boots and bloused fatigues. His very name has been taken from him and replaced with the generic name used for everybody, "Recruit".

After a few more hours of screaming insults, embarrassments, foolish exercises, irritation and exhaustion the recruits are then herded into the barracks were they would all be sleeping in one room. His only personal space is his mattress and his footlocker, which may be invaded at any time by his drill instructor when he takes the notion. Exhausted, from the fear and events of the day the new recruits "hit the sack". It certainly isn’t the bed from home and the lack of privacy is just an unwelcome stranger they must get used two. What the recruits may not realize is that this is possibly the best day of their stay here on Paris Island.

What happened to the promised glory and valor of the almighty Marine? This certainly doesn’t measure up.

It seems our young recruit has just fallen asleep when he hears something. That would be the man with the face of the bulldog. He is screaming that it is time for you lousy recruits to get out of the bed, dressed, and to meet in front of the barracks. The "kind" man let you sleep in a little, it’s almost three o’clock in the morning of your first full day of basic training.

It’s now time to run before breakfast. By the time they reach the breakfast table they have run until some have vomited but everyone’s chest feels as if it could explode. The new boots aren’t the best things in the world for running and the fatigues are incredibly hot in the steamy, South Carolina air. They have been screaming "SIR, YES SIR" to every continuous stream of orders so loud that you could probably here them in Charleston. Every time one recruit messes up the whole platoon suffers the consequences.

For the next twelve weeks our young man is known only as "Recruit". The picture of the valiant Marine in the pressed blue uniform with a shiny silver sword with the gold handle or the rifle tucked neatly to the side is a mere memory so far away. His entire self-esteem and feeling of self worth is gone. His since of individuality is only a long lost friend. For twelve weeks he lives with little food, poor or no shelter, little or no sleep trudging through steamy temperatures, pouring rain, mud as deep as his knees and pavement as hot as the sun running or marching until his feet and legs feel they could fall off or his lungs will explode driven only by his will to survive. He now understands why this place has been affectionately labeled as "Hell on Earth".